1. Field of the Invention:
The present invention relates to a cam milling machine for successively machining cams of a workpiece such as, for example, an automotive camshaft with a milling cutter.
2. Description of the Prior Art:
A known cam milling machine is provided with an upright worktable, which is mounted on a bed to be slidable in a first horizontal direction. A headstock and a tailstock are secured to an elevational surface of the worktable for supporting at a time two camshafts rotatable about respective axes which are vertically spaced and which extend in the first horizontal direction. A cutter support by which two milling cutters are carried for rotation about vertically spaced respective horzontal axes is mounted on the bed for indexing movement in the first horizontal direction as well as for feed movement toward and away from the workpieces in a second horizontal direction transverse to the first horizontal direction. The milling cutters are brought into axial alignment respectively with selected cams on the two camshafts through the indexing movement and then, into cutting engagements with the selected cams through the feed movement.
With this design concent, the known machine has an easy front-side accessibility at the cost of the rear-side accessibility being presented. In particular, the upright worktable prevents a workpiece transfer way from horizontally extending across the space between the headstock and the tailstock from the front of the machine toward the rear, and therefore, the known machine is unable to meet the requirement for integration onto an in-line type workpiece transfer device. Further, the cutting points to each of which the largest load is applied are considerably spaced upwards apart from slideways of the upright worktable formed at the lower surface, and this is liable to decrease the supporting rigidity of the upright worktable, which may results in a tilting motion of the upright worktable as well as in chatter of the milling cutters during the machining operation.